Matthew Dyson

Professor of Civil and Criminal Law

Faculty officer role(s):

Director of the Institute for European and Comparative Law

Biography

I specialise in the criminal law, tort law, and the relationship between the two. My work is often historical and comparative. My publications are available in chronological order under the Publications tab of this website, but available more accessibly under the "Interests" tab. My most recent large work was a monograph, Explaining Tort and Crime, published with CUP in late 2022: https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/law/private-law/explaining-tort-and-crime-legal-development-across-laws-and-legal-systems-18502020?format=HB

I came to the Faculty and to Corpus Christi in 2016, and in 2021 became Professor of Civil and Criminal Law. I was previously a Fellow in Law and Director of Studies at Trinity College, Cambridge (2011-2016) and Jesus College, Cambridge (2008-11). I'm also: an associate member of 6KBW College Hill, Chambers specialising in criminal law and related areas of public and civil law; a Research Fellow of the Utrecht Centre for Accountability and Liability Law and President of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. I have held visiting positions at institutions including the Universities of Paris-Dauphine, Cape Town, Iowa, Sao Paulo, Göttingen, Sydney, Notre Dame in London, and the Max Planck Institute for International and Comparative Private Law, Hamburg.

If you're looking for information on publishing scholarly works, I can help with comparative legal history, private law and criminal law. I am currently on the advisory boards of Comparative Legal History, GLOSSAE and the Utrecht Law Review and the international advisory boards of the Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht, Zeitschrift für Internationale Strafrechtsdogmatik, Criminal Law Forum and theRevista Electrónica de Ciencia Penal y Criminología. Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspects of them (broadly, comparative legal history, legal history, private law and criminal law).

Everyone with the necessary application, reasoning ability and communication skills should feel that Oxford is the kind of place they could study law, if they want. If you are a potential applicant, I might be fortunate enough to meet you around the country or in Oxford at an access or admissions event. To find out more about such activities in Oxford, there are more details on the Faculty's access pages, available here, and on Corpus Christi College's law pages, available here.

Publications

Journal Article (18)

DYSON M, ‘The Contribution of Complicity’ [2022] Journal of Criminal Law

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DYSON M, ‘Principals Without Distinction’ [2018] Criminal Law Review -London-

Dyson M, ‘The smallest fault in manslaughter’ (2017) 6 Archbold Review 44716

Dyson M, ‘Ever working in practice, but never in theory? The new English law of criminal complicity’ (2017) 129(1) Zeitschrift für Die Gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft 1

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DYSON M, ‘Letter to the Editor’ [2016] Criminal Law Review

Dyson M, ‘If the present were the past’ (2016) 56(1) American Journal of Legal History 41

Dyson M and Saeb-Parsy et al. K, ‘Transplanting suboptimal organs: medicolegal implications’ (2015) 386 Lancet 369

Dyson M, ‘La Respuesta del Derecho Civil a Sentencias Penales en Inglaterra y España’ (2015) 3 InDret 1

Dyson M, ‘The future of joint-up thinking: living in a post-accessory liability world’ (2015) 79(3) Journal of Criminal Law 181

Dyson M and Randall QC J, ‘Criminal Convictions and the Civil Courts’ (2015) 74(1) Cambridge Law Journal 78

Dyson M, ‘Might Alone Does Not Make Right: Justifying Secondary Liability’ (2015) 16 Criminal Law Review 967

Dyson M, ‘Scrapping Khan? The Court of Appeal and intending all you attempt’ [2014] Criminal Law Review 445

Dyson M, ‘Symposium on Legal Domains and Comparative Law. Wheels Within Wheels: Using Legal Domains for Domestic Comparative Law’ (2013) 17(3) The Edinburgh Law Review 42

Dyson M, ‘Civil Law Responses to Criminal Judgments in England and Spain’ (2012) 3(3) Journal of European Tort Law 308

Dyson M, ‘The Timing of Tortious and Criminal Actions for the Same Wrong’ (2012) 71(1) Cambridge Law Journal 85

Dyson M, ‘Public Order on the Internet’ (2010) 2 Archbold Review 44810

Dyson M, ‘Connecting Tort and Crime: Comparative Legal History in England and Spain since 1850’ (2009) 11 Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies 247

Dyson M, ‘R. v Rahman [2007] EWCA Crim 342: Fundamental Similarity in Secondary Liability’ (2007) 4 Archbold Review 4

Book (1)

Dyson M, Explaining Tort and Crime: Legal Development Across Laws and Legal Systems, 1850-2020 (CUP 2022)

Chapter (27)

Dyson M and Gordon E, ‘Tort and stability’, Essays in Law and History for David Ibbetson: Querella (2024)

Stevenson M and Dyson M, ‘The Proposal for a Statutory Right to Anonymity for Criminal Suspects Pre-Charge’, Criminal Law Reform Now: Proposals and Critique, Volume 2 (2024)

Dyson M and Meyer F, ‘Structures within Criminal Legal Reasoning’ in K Ambos et al. (ed.), Core Concepts in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice vol 2 (CUP 2022)

Dyson M, ‘Age Before Beauty; Pearls Before Swine: when the Criminal Law’s Content Gives Way’ in M Engelhart et al. (ed.), Digitalisierung, Globalisierung und Risikoprävention: Festschrift für Ulrich Sieber zum 70. Geburtstag (Duncker & Humblot 2021)

Dyson M, ‘Presence of mind and the future of legal history’ in C Häthén et al. (ed.), Legal History: Reflecting the Past and the Present, Current Perspectives for the Future (Olin 2021)

Dyson M, ‘Tort and Crime’ in M Bussani and A Sebok (eds.), Comparative Tort Law: Global Perspectives (Edward Elgar 2021)

Dyson M, ‘Unavoidable procedural questions about tort and crime’ in CE Pianovski and N Rosenvald (eds.), Novas Fronteiras da responsabilidade civil: direito comparado (Foco 2020)

Dyson M, ‘Beyond anecdote and synecdoche’ in W Ernst and B Haecker (eds.), Collective Judging in Comparative Perspective (Intesentia) (Intersentia 2020)

Taylor S, Dyson M and Fairgrieve D, ‘Regards comparatifs sur les projets de réforme français et belge. La perspective du droit anglais’ in B Dubuisson (ed.), La réforme de la responsabilité civile en France et en Belgique. Regards croisés et aspects de droit comparé (Bruylant 2020)

Taylor S, Dyson M and Fairgrieve D, ‘Regards comparatifs sur les projets de réforme français et belge. La perspective du droit anglais""’ in B Dubuisson (ed.), La réforme de la responsabilité civile en France et en Belgique. Regards croisés et aspects de droit comparé (Bruylant 2020)

Dyson M, ‘The Queen v C, D and E: In the Supreme Court of Ruritania’ in B Krebs (ed.), Accessorial Liability after Jogee (Hart 2020)

Dyson M, ‘Comparative Legal History: Methodology for Morphology’ in O Moréteau, A Masferrer and K Ã…. Modéer (eds.), Edward Elgar Handbook of Comparative Legal History (Edward Elgar 2019)

Dyson M and Jarvis P, ‘Remedies of the Criminal Courts’, Commercial Remedies: Resolving Controversies (Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2017)

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Dyson M, ‘R v. Hancock and Shankland’ in P Handler, H Mares and I Williams (eds.), Landmark Cases in the Criminal Law (Hart 2017)

Dyson M, ‘The State’s obligation to provide a coherent system of remedies across crime and tort’ in A du Bois-Pedain et al. (ed.), Criminal Law and the Authority of the State (Hart 2017)

Dyson M, ‘Frederick Pollock, The Law of Torts’ in S Dauchy et al. (ed.), The Formation and Transmission of Western Legal Culture: 150 Books that made the law in the Age of Printing (Springer 2016)

Dyson M, ‘Precariousness as rhetoric: the role of the state in private and public expressions of justice’ in C Lageot and N Papineau (eds.), Approches franco-britanniques de la précarité: principe(s), droit(s), pratique(s) (LDGJ 2016)

Dyson M, ‘Judicial Decision-making in England Today’ in J Basedow, H Fleischer and R Zimmermann (eds.), Legislators, Judges, and Professors (Mohr Siebeck 2016)

Dyson M, ‘Tort and Crime’ in M Bussani and A Sebok (eds.), Comparative Tort Law: Global Perspectives (Edward Elgar 2015)

Dyson M, ‘Tortious Apples and Criminal Oranges’ in M Dyson (ed.), Comparing Tort and Crime (Cambridge University Press 2015)

Dyson M and Randall QC J, ‘England’s Splendid Isolation’ in M Dyson (ed.), Comparing Tort and Crime (Cambridge University Press 2015)

Dyson M, ‘Introduction’ in M Dyson (ed.), Comparing Tort and Crime (Cambridge University Press 2015)

Dyson M and Green S, ‘The properties of the law: restoring personal property through crime and tort’, Unravelling Tort and Crime (Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2014)

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Dyson M, ‘Disentangling and Organising Tort and Crime’ in M Dyson (ed.), Unravelling Tort and Crime (Cambridge University Press 2014)

Dyson M, ‘Divide and Conquer: Using Legal Domains in Comparative Legal Studies’ in G Helleringer and K Purnhagen (eds.), Towards a European Legal Culture (Hart; Beck Nomos 2014)

DYSON M, ‘Ligations Divide and Conquer: Using Legal Domains in Comparative Legal Studies’ in G HELLERINGER and KP Purnhagen (eds.), Towards a European Legal Culture (Nomos/Hart 2014)

Dyson M, ‘Challenging the Orthodoxy of Crime’s Precedence over Tort: Suspending a Tort Claim Where a Crime May Exist’ in E Chamberlain, J W Neyers and G A Pitel (eds.), Challenging Orthodoxy in Tort Law (Hart 2013)

Edited book (6)

Dyson M, Regulating Risk Through Private Law (Intersentia 2018)

Dyson M, Blackstone’s Statutes on Criminal Law 2017-18 (Oxford University Press 2017)

Dyson M, Lee J and Wilson S, Fifty Years of the Law Commissions: The Dynamics of Law Reform (Hart 2016)

Dyson M, Comparing Tort and Crime (Cambridge University Press 2015)

Dyson M, Unravelling Tort and Crime (Cambridge University Press 2014)

Dyson M, Law and Legal Process: Substantive Law and Procedure in English Legal History (Cambridge University Press 2013)

Review (6)

Dyson M, ‘Paula Giliker, Vicarious Liability in Tort: A Comparative Perspective (CUP)’ [2011] ICLQ 1096 (review)

Dyson M, ‘M Dougan and S Currie (eds), 50 Years of the European Treaties Looking Back and Thinking Forward (Hart)’ [2010] Cambridge Law Journal 678 (review)

Dyson M, ‘D Beyleveld and R Brownsword, Consent in the Law (OUP)’ [2008] Cambridge Law Journal 215 (review)

Dyson M, ‘Mark van Hoecke (ed.), Epistemology and Methodology of Comparative Law (Hart)’ [2007] Cambridge Law Journal 237 (review)

Dyson M, ‘Legrand and Munday (eds) Comparative Legal Studies: Traditions and Transitions (CUP)’ (2005) 1 Cambridge Student Law Review 74 (review)

Dyson M, ‘Martin Loughlin, The Idea of Public Law (OUP)’ [2005] Cambridge Law Journal 503 (review)

Case Note (3)

Dyson M and Jarvis P, ‘Poison Ivey or herbal tea leaf?’ [2018] Law Quarterly Review 198 (case-note)

Dyson M, ‘R. v. Thompson and Mendez’ (2010) EWCA Crim 516 Cambridge Law Journal 425 (case-note)

Dyson M, ‘R. v. Rimmington; R. v. Goldstein’ (2005) UKHL Cambridge Law Journal (case-note)

Research Interests

The core research interest of Matt's work has been the relationship between criminal law and tort law since around 1850 in around 10 legal systems.

He welcomes research proposals on criminal law, tort law, legal history and comparative law. Traditions and Transitions, CUP, 2003.

Research projects & programmes

Criminal Law Discussion Group Institute of European and Comparative Law Roman Law Assize Seminars: Cutting Edge Criminal Law Private Law Research Group Understanding Illegal Tort Claims: Comparative Legal Reasoning in Global Perspective

Options taught

Tort

Criminal Law (Mods)

A Roman Introduction to Private Law

Matthew Dyson

Biography

Publications

Research Interests

Research projects & programmes

Options taught

IECL Launches Exchange Programme with Max Planck Law

Matt Dyson hosts IECL ‘expert meeting’ with Leiden University

Matthew Dyson

Biography

Publications

Research Interests

Research projects & programmes

Options taught

Related

News

IECL Launches Exchange Programme with Max Planck Law

Matt Dyson hosts IECL ‘expert meeting’ with Leiden University